Actually, if I travel TO the US, my fees are not zero.
If I use my debit card to withdraw cash outside my home country my bank charges me nothing. The bank whose machine I'm using charges me some fee though. I really doubt this card will be any different, except that your bank (BitInstant) will charge you as well.
If using it as a credit card, my Mastercard charges me nothing to use anywhere MC is accepted, except the exchange rate, which is set in the bank's favour. BitInstant will charge $1.50 plus 1%, plus the exchange rate, which will undoubtedly also be set in the bank's favour. The way most of the bit coin exchanges work is that they run their currency exchanges through a regular bank. MtGox, for example, seems to use a bank in Japan, which charges 2.5% to convert to or from US dollars.
You sell things on eBay. You have a Paypal account that can accept credit cards. When you sell your item, you pay Paypal 2.9% + $0.30 for merchant fees.
Or, you sell things on eBay. You accept BitCoin. eBay deletes your auction, and maybe your account.
Supposing eBay DIDN'T ban you, there are cheaper ways to accept payment. In Canada an Interac e-transfer works essentially the same way PalPal does (you send money from your bank account to someone else, identified by their e-mail address or a mobile phone number). It costs me $1.50 to send, free to receive.
Yeah, Iron Mountain seems to have made a pretty good business out of doing just this. The only difference with Amazon is that they don't send a truck to pick up your tapes.
1% + $1.50 fee... so why would I want to use this? My current debit transaction fees are... zero. AND I don't have to worry about the value of the money in my account fluctuating wildly.
You seem to be reading those sentences with a certain bias. The first one literally says that the jury must follow the law, whether or not they agree with it. I don't know what you think that conflicts with in your constitution. You don't want juries deciding that people are murderers, for example, even though they clearly didn't commit murder but the jury doesn't like them.
The second sentence says that the jury must not infer that the judge has an opinion as to the proper verdict. That's not the same thing as interpreting the law.
If the price is a significant discount, they probably will convert some people. There are a lot of people who wouldn't pay $250 for a Windows license, particularly when they know that OEMs get them for more like $25. But if one were available for $50? Some would buy. Quite a few would pick one up if it were $25.
MS did something similar with Office. Normally it's some ridiculous price in the multiple hundreds, but for students they sometimes drop it down to $25. Most students will buy a copy for $25. Very few will pay $300.
Actually, US health care is generally ranked as moderate overall and below average for a western nation. WAY below average for one of the richest nations in the world. But if you're okay with maybe one day catching up with Cuba....
Good argument. Problem is, it's the propaganda one that opponents of public health care use, and it isn't supported by evidence. In fact, the evidence is to the contrary. Public health care systems, around the world, are cheaper than the US privatized one, yet almost all provide better care under almost any objective measure you care to use.
Who's giving anything out for free? Public health care systems simply involve one not for profit entity, the government, paying.
Speaking as someone who actually does medical research, in Canada, drug companies do and fund plenty of research here. We have excellent, unified records for epidemiological studies and a comparatively simple, consistent system with little risk of frivolous lawsuits.
Popular? In Canada any hint of weakening the public health care system is met with outrage. It's one of the few things you can guarantee will upset Canadians, and get your government booted. I suspect the same is probably true in other countries that have them.
Congratulations. You have probably expressed a reasonable opinion on Slashdot. Reasonable opinions are almost guaranteed to annoy a slashtar... I mean, Slashdotter with mod points, and "troll" is how emotionally immature persons crouching in their parents' basement see people who disagree with them.
The amount the US spends on health care in total, Medicare, Medicaid and all the private health insurance, is about twice, per capita, what Canada, the UK, or Australia spend on their public systems. And that STILL doesn't adequately cover everybody.
Except for their 50,000 US employees. And the $4 billion a year the iOS app store sends out to independent developers, mostly in the US. And all those music industry people who make money from selling music on iTunes. There's a study that says Apple actually supports about 300,000 jobs in the US.
Yes, they support a lot of manufacturing jobs overseas, but it's pretty silly to say they contribute little to the US economy.
Why exactly do you and the dozen or so other posters saying the same thing think that the market cap of a company has anything to do with how critical it's product is? I have a friend who's a farmer. He grows food. You know, the stuff that keeps all of us alive. Why isn't his market cap bigger than Exxon Mobile? All they sell is oil. They don't even make it! And we could certainly do without it if we had to!
Apple makes things that people want to buy. They make a lot of those things, and a lot of people want to buy them. They make a lot of money. Therefore, as a business, they are worth a lot of money. That's how these things work.
Oh, and iPod cases aren't sealed either. You can replace the battery in an iPod in about ten minutes. Probably five if you do it regularly. And despite those "loud complaints" (mostly on Slashdot), recall what the most successful line of personal music players ever is.
"My television is made up of several components: a main board, a back light, a screen and a power supply, each one of these parts can be individually replaced."
Sounds pretty close to how a new retina MBP is made. Main board (including memory), backlight/screen assembly (your TV probably has an integrated unit too, unless it's quite old), power supply. The MBP also has a replaceable SSD, batteries that can be replaced, although it requires replacing part of the case as well, and random other stuff like the keyboard and track pad.
You probably remember it because it required a... ridiculously long torx screwdriver (back when torx screwdrivers were pretty rare). A Mac SE was a lot more sealed than a retina macbook pro is (a retina MBP is also not very sealed).
A friend asked me to replace the battery in his iPhone. It took ten minutes, mostly because I had to use a knife as a screwdriver because the crappy one he got in the battery replacement kit broke (we were at a conference, no tools around). I think the total cost was about $5.
I had a hard drive dock that stopped working. I opened it up... one circuit board. After an hour and a half of poking at it with logic probes looking for the loose connection I gave up, tossed it and bought another one.
Slashdot Mirror
It doesn't have to be blind. In this case you're TRYING to measure the subjective effects.
Actually, if I travel TO the US, my fees are not zero.
If I use my debit card to withdraw cash outside my home country my bank charges me nothing. The bank whose machine I'm using charges me some fee though. I really doubt this card will be any different, except that your bank (BitInstant) will charge you as well.
If using it as a credit card, my Mastercard charges me nothing to use anywhere MC is accepted, except the exchange rate, which is set in the bank's favour. BitInstant will charge $1.50 plus 1%, plus the exchange rate, which will undoubtedly also be set in the bank's favour. The way most of the bit coin exchanges work is that they run their currency exchanges through a regular bank. MtGox, for example, seems to use a bank in Japan, which charges 2.5% to convert to or from US dollars.
Hm... the punishment for rape is transplantation of the embryo, after which you're required to bring it to term and give birth through your penis.
Nah, it would still be cruel to the kid.
And guys rape women and say they didn't. News flash, people lie.
Except this is the actual scenario:
You sell things on eBay. You have a Paypal account that can accept credit cards. When you sell your item, you pay Paypal 2.9% + $0.30 for merchant fees.
Or, you sell things on eBay. You accept BitCoin. eBay deletes your auction, and maybe your account.
Supposing eBay DIDN'T ban you, there are cheaper ways to accept payment. In Canada an Interac e-transfer works essentially the same way PalPal does (you send money from your bank account to someone else, identified by their e-mail address or a mobile phone number). It costs me $1.50 to send, free to receive.
Yeah, Iron Mountain seems to have made a pretty good business out of doing just this. The only difference with Amazon is that they don't send a truck to pick up your tapes.
1% + $1.50 fee... so why would I want to use this? My current debit transaction fees are... zero. AND I don't have to worry about the value of the money in my account fluctuating wildly.
You seem to be reading those sentences with a certain bias. The first one literally says that the jury must follow the law, whether or not they agree with it. I don't know what you think that conflicts with in your constitution. You don't want juries deciding that people are murderers, for example, even though they clearly didn't commit murder but the jury doesn't like them.
The second sentence says that the jury must not infer that the judge has an opinion as to the proper verdict. That's not the same thing as interpreting the law.
If the price is a significant discount, they probably will convert some people. There are a lot of people who wouldn't pay $250 for a Windows license, particularly when they know that OEMs get them for more like $25. But if one were available for $50? Some would buy. Quite a few would pick one up if it were $25.
MS did something similar with Office. Normally it's some ridiculous price in the multiple hundreds, but for students they sometimes drop it down to $25. Most students will buy a copy for $25. Very few will pay $300.
Actually, US health care is generally ranked as moderate overall and below average for a western nation. WAY below average for one of the richest nations in the world. But if you're okay with maybe one day catching up with Cuba....
Good argument. Problem is, it's the propaganda one that opponents of public health care use, and it isn't supported by evidence. In fact, the evidence is to the contrary. Public health care systems, around the world, are cheaper than the US privatized one, yet almost all provide better care under almost any objective measure you care to use.
Who's giving anything out for free? Public health care systems simply involve one not for profit entity, the government, paying.
Speaking as someone who actually does medical research, in Canada, drug companies do and fund plenty of research here. We have excellent, unified records for epidemiological studies and a comparatively simple, consistent system with little risk of frivolous lawsuits.
Popular? In Canada any hint of weakening the public health care system is met with outrage. It's one of the few things you can guarantee will upset Canadians, and get your government booted. I suspect the same is probably true in other countries that have them.
Congratulations. You have probably expressed a reasonable opinion on Slashdot. Reasonable opinions are almost guaranteed to annoy a slashtar... I mean, Slashdotter with mod points, and "troll" is how emotionally immature persons crouching in their parents' basement see people who disagree with them.
With a three trillion dollar deficit and record personal debt, pretty much everything the US does is "stealing from future generations."
On the other hand, non-deficit funded public health care systems in other countries are not.
The amount the US spends on health care in total, Medicare, Medicaid and all the private health insurance, is about twice, per capita, what Canada, the UK, or Australia spend on their public systems. And that STILL doesn't adequately cover everybody.
Except for their 50,000 US employees. And the $4 billion a year the iOS app store sends out to independent developers, mostly in the US. And all those music industry people who make money from selling music on iTunes. There's a study that says Apple actually supports about 300,000 jobs in the US.
Yes, they support a lot of manufacturing jobs overseas, but it's pretty silly to say they contribute little to the US economy.
OMG, Apple didn't invent a brand new multi-tens-of-billions-of-dollars market in the last two years! They're clearly doomed!
Why exactly do you and the dozen or so other posters saying the same thing think that the market cap of a company has anything to do with how critical it's product is? I have a friend who's a farmer. He grows food. You know, the stuff that keeps all of us alive. Why isn't his market cap bigger than Exxon Mobile? All they sell is oil. They don't even make it! And we could certainly do without it if we had to!
Apple makes things that people want to buy. They make a lot of those things, and a lot of people want to buy them. They make a lot of money. Therefore, as a business, they are worth a lot of money. That's how these things work.
Good thing the cases aren't sealed then, hey?
Oh, and iPod cases aren't sealed either. You can replace the battery in an iPod in about ten minutes. Probably five if you do it regularly. And despite those "loud complaints" (mostly on Slashdot), recall what the most successful line of personal music players ever is.
"My television is made up of several components: a main board, a back light, a screen and a power supply, each one of these parts can be individually replaced."
Sounds pretty close to how a new retina MBP is made. Main board (including memory), backlight/screen assembly (your TV probably has an integrated unit too, unless it's quite old), power supply. The MBP also has a replaceable SSD, batteries that can be replaced, although it requires replacing part of the case as well, and random other stuff like the keyboard and track pad.
Except that MBPs don't self destruct after a few years. The most common way to "upgrade" any laptop today is to... sell it to someone else.
Your analogy is quite apt though. How many people upgrade their cars?
You probably remember it because it required a... ridiculously long torx screwdriver (back when torx screwdrivers were pretty rare). A Mac SE was a lot more sealed than a retina macbook pro is (a retina MBP is also not very sealed).
A friend asked me to replace the battery in his iPhone. It took ten minutes, mostly because I had to use a knife as a screwdriver because the crappy one he got in the battery replacement kit broke (we were at a conference, no tools around). I think the total cost was about $5.
I had a hard drive dock that stopped working. I opened it up... one circuit board. After an hour and a half of poking at it with logic probes looking for the loose connection I gave up, tossed it and bought another one.
Greenpeace hates them too.